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ORAL HISTORY OF DOROTHYE STEELE PATTERSON
Interviewed by Chris Albrecht
Filmed by Rick Greene
Significant Productions
November 3, 2005
Transcribed by Jordan Reed
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, let’s get started with; please tell me your name and where you live, just for the record.
MRS. PATTERSON: My name is Dorothye Strickland Steele Patterson.
MR. ALBRECHT: And you live…
MRS. PATTERSON: I live at 198 South Benedict Avenue in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
MR. ALBRECHT: Thank you very much. As I told you I’m going to ask you a few questions and then we’ll let you finish up what we did the other time. As you know we want to talk about your earliest memories of Oak Ridge, but before that I would like you to tell me a little bit about your family, about your parents. Now we have heard from your mother, but I want to hear your perspective. I want you to tell me about your mother and father, who they were, what they were doing, that kind of thing. Just give us some background please.
MRS. PATTERSON: Well, my mom and dad are from Alabama, Auburn, Alabama and when we were in Alabama we lived in Auburn. Now before that we lived out on a farm in the country, out in Lee County. But we moved to Auburn, while they were there my dad worked in town and my mom did also.
MR. GREENE: Oh, hold up. We’re getting paper rustling sounds.
MRS. PATTERSON: Oh, ok.
MR. ALBRECHT: Do you want me to hold the paper until you’re ready to read it?
MRS. PATTERSON: Ok.
MR. ALBRECHT: I’ll just keep it over here.
MRS. PATTERSON: Ok.
MR. GREENE: Sorry.
MR. ALBRECHT: Do we need to start over?
MR. GREENE: Yeah, we need to start over.
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, I’m sorry about that. If you could start with your name and where you live like you done before.
MRS. PATTERSON: My name is Dorothye Strickland Steele Patterson. I live at 242, not 242, that’s my mom’s address. I live at 198 South Benedict in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And my mom and dad, we lived with my mom and dad in Auburn, Alabama. And we lived in Auburn Alabama. There were four of us girls. My mom didn’t have any boys. I am the oldest and Emma, her name was Emma Gene Harris, she was the baby. She was born in 1942. And she was a baby when my dad came to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They both worked in Auburn and while we were there, my sister Margaret was standing by a fireplace, and during that time, some maybe some strings were hanging down from her dress or something, and she caught on fire. My dad was coming home on lunch. He was riding his bicycle so he saw her when she ran out the door. He jumped off that bicycle and ran and caught her and started rolling her over you know and everything. She was burned pretty bad, but my grandmother who was a woman of all, a jack of all trades so to speak, took care of her for 17 days and 17 nights, she took care of her. She made saves out of the woods and stuff. She never did take her to a doctor. She took care of her until she got well. She still has some of the scars on her thighs, but my grandmother took care of her and we never took her to a doctor. But my dad was coming home from work and he was riding a bicycle, didn’t have a car. So he jumped off that bicycle. It was a good thing he was coming home for lunch that day.
MR. ALBRECHT: What kind of work did your father do in town? And what kind of work did your mother do in town?
MRS. PATTERSON: I think that my dad worked at a creamery. My mom worked at the library there in Auburn. When they came up here, we went to live with our grandparents. There were more than just the four of us girls that were living with our grandparents. We had other cousins who were living with us whose parents were either up here or had gone on to Virginia. We all became a real close-knitted family because of the living quarters with our grandparents who were taking care of us while our parents were here. We stayed down there in Alabama with my grandparents until I decided I didn’t want to stay down there anymore. My grandmother gave me a whipping that I didn’t think that I deserved. I was always a good girl I thought, so she gave me a whipping and I wrote my mom a letter and I told her. I said, “We don’t want to stay here anymore. We want to come up there and stay with you.” So they came and got us because I wrote that letter. We had been to Oak Ridge before to visit and I think that was ’47 or ’48. We had to wait outside the gate because the passes were not ready so someone had to go back in Oak Ridge to get the passes while we had to wait at the gate before we could enter Oak Ridge. You know they had different gates all over Oak Ridge. They had one at the east, north, and south. That’s the way you could come into Oak Ridge. If you didn’t have a pass you couldn’t enter the city. So our passes weren’t there so we had to wait until our passes got there before we could enter into the city. So we visited and we really liked it.
[Break in audio]
MRS. PATTERSON: … had bought me a new bicycle. I was able to ride that bicycle. We went to a place called the Scarboro Community Center. It was not where we live now called the community center. We went to the center everyday just about and really did like this place. Soon we moved out, after we had come to stay for good, we lived in a place called the flattops. These houses were like I think they had two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bath. All four of us girls stayed in one bedroom sleeping two at the head and two at the foot of the bed. That’s the way we slept. But we really enjoyed being here with our parents even though we loved being in Alabama and going to school down there was really fun. We had competition with our other cousins running home every day to show our grandmother our papers and everything. So we had a lot of fun, but still we wasn’t with our parents. We were glad to be in Oak Ridge.
MR. ALBRECHT: What do you remember as a child, when your folks were talking about coming to Oak Ridge and shipping you off to your grandparents? Do you remember any of the conversations that took place at that time?
MRS. PATTERSON: No, I really don’t remember any of those things, except that my daddy said that they could make much more money than what they were making down there and that was one of the reasons they wanted to come up to Oak Ridge. They made a lot of money, you know. They would send money home to take care of us. My mom would make sure that we got money and things that we needed.
MR. ALBRECHT: So, when you were staying with your grandparents, it was you, your sisters…
MRS. PATTERSON: My other cousins.
MR. ALBRECHT: …your other cousins and so forth. You had a good time. You were close-knit, but how did you feel about being away from your parents?
MRS. PATTERSON: We didn’t like that at all. We wanted to be with our parents. Now my baby sister she was just like a little baby at that time because she was born in 1942. I was born in 1936. I am the oldest and so we had to take care of each other. I had to do a lot of taking care of and a lot of growing up. I was doing washing, ironing, cooking, and I was a little girl.
MR. ALBRECHT: You probably told me, but tell me again, how old were you when you first moved to Oak Ridge?
MRS. PATTERSON: I think I was around about 11 or 12. I think I was in 6th grade.
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, how did your life change when you came to Oak Ridge to stay for good?
MRS. PATTERSON: Things changed, you know. We had more of everything, living with our parents. It was just great to be here with our parents. Living with your grandparents, you know, and the rest of the kids, that was ok, but it was much better being here with our parents.
MR. ALBRECHT: I can understand that. You mentioned that when you came here you were in the 6th grade. Tell us about where you went to school and was it integrated, was it segregated. Tell us the status.
MRS. PATTERSON: I went to Scarboro School. It was elementary and high school. We usually say Scarboro High School, but it was elementary and high school. And it was segregated. We had teachers who were paid, and then we had some volunteers. They were white who worked at the plant. And they were doing shift times. They would come to school from time to time to volunteer. My sister when we started, she was like in elementary, we had like two wings and one wing was for the high school and one wing for the elementary. We had great teachers. Teachers who really cared about us and our principal was Mrs. Arizona Officer. And her husband also taught. He was a teacher. They were wonderful people. They cared about us a lot. My baby sister, my mom had a baby in Oak Ridge. I was 16 years old and I really didn’t like it and I stayed mad at my mom I don’t know for how long, I was just so mad she had gotten pregnant and was going to have a baby. I figured I was going to be taking care of that baby being 16 and everything. So going to school, I had to stay out of school to take care of the baby because something happened and the babysitter couldn’t take care of the baby. My momma worked, she always worked. So I had to stay out of school. So, Ms. Officer called and wanted to know why I wasn’t coming to school. So I told her I had to take care of the baby she told me to bring that baby to school. I did. So I started taking her to school and that’s when Scarboro Daycare Center started. I would take Virginia to school every day until my momma was able to get someone to take care of her. The teachers were caring people. That’s what I miss, well I didn’t go to Oak Ridge High School, but that’s what I miss is their loving and caring that seemed like it was missing when we started school at Oak Ridge High School. My sister started Oak Ridge High School the 1955-1956 year. I graduated Scarboro High School 1954-55 and during that period of time the transition started. I would go over to Oak Ridge High School and some of the white kids would come over to Scarboro School to help us get acquainted. It started before the Supreme Court handed down the decision because we were already in the process of doing the transition for the next year. And the Supreme Court handed down their decision May 17, 1954, and I was really excited about it because that meant that schools were going to be integrated. Going to Scarboro we had more say than when I was going to Alabama, but it still wasn’t like going to Oak Ridge High School where there were advantages that we wouldn’t have because for instance, the volunteer teachers. We didn’t have enough paid teachers, so we had volunteers. Things were just not, they say you’re suppose to be separate but equal, that wasn’t true for us and education in most Black schools you can always pass by a white school while you were on the way to a segregated Black school. So things changed once the schools were integrated and I was a part of that transition from Scarboro to Oak Ridge High School.
MR. ALBRECHT: Tell me a little bit more about the teachers and the volunteer teachers. Were they Black, were they white?
MRS. PATTERSON: They were white. The volunteer teachers were white; they had jobs at the plants. And I guess some of them were scientists or things like that and they would come and teach class. I can remember that we had some that came in and taught biology. We had a teacher that taught biology, but that wasn’t her subject. She was like a Home Ec. teacher or something like that. Anyway, the teachers who were there really cared about you and helped you with your homework. I usually had my homework done before I came home every day because we had study hall and the teachers would help us. So usually I didn’t have homework when I got home which was good because usually I had to finish my chores like if I hadn’t finished cleaning up I had to do that when I got home. I helped cooked dinner ‘cause my mom worked. So I usually had my homework done at school because the teachers made sure we got our lessons. That’s one of the things that was missing once we had integrated schools. You had teachers that really cared about you. Then you missed all that community and the getting together, the PTA meetings and things like that, you missed all that, the feeling of being together.
MR. ALBRECHT: You mentioned the volunteer teachers were white, were the paid teachers white also?
MRS. PATTERSON: No, no, they were Black teachers.
MR. ALBRECHT: Tell me about, you mentioned living in the flattops, two bedrooms and so forth, was there a big difference between where white families and where Black families lived?
MRS. PATTERSON: I really don’t know. When we moved from the flattops we moved to where I’m living now. I was a little girl at that time. So I don’t know exactly where white people were living. I didn’t really come in contact with that many white people unless they were the volunteer teachers that came over. I don’t know about exactly where they were living. They were living in Oak Ridge, and we use to get on the buses on Sundays and ride around to the different places in Oak Ridge and they lived on streets like Pennsylvania, New York, and all these different kinds of states. At one point I thought I was going to New York City or something. We lived in Scarboro where all the streets are named after Black universities and we would get on the buses on Sunday, you know you could ride on a bus for 10 cents. And get a token and you could get off that bus and get on another bus and just ride around all over Oak Ridge just about. We used to think we were going from city to city, Pennsylvania, New York and all these places named after the states a lot of those streets were. I never had that much contact with the white kids.
MR. ALBRECHT: Let me ask you a question: you talk about riding the bus and it makes me think about the recent passing of Rosa Parks. Did you have, tell me about the segregation that was here. Did you have to ride in the back of the bus? Tell me about some of the examples when you were a school girl.
MRS. PATTERSON: In Oak Ridge, things were segregated. It was just like any other place. You would think that being here and everything that being run by the federal government things would be different. But if, say, we wanted to get a sandwich or something, we had to go around to the back and get it or something. We couldn’t just go in, sit down, and eat. We couldn’t go to the movies. You couldn’t do things just like everywhere else. You couldn’t go into the McCrory’s 5 and 10 cent store. We had one of them. You couldn’t go in there and sit down or order anything and eat it. You could get things, but you couldn’t sit. Restaurants and things, cafeterias, you could not eat. We had a skating rink, we were allowed to skate on Sunday nights. But we wanted to skate anytime that we wanted to skate you know. So we started to picket this place and different places. This man closed the skating rink down. He said that he would never let Black folks skate. So he closed it down. And Davis Brother’s Cafeteria, we had to picket it. We picketed the Laundromat and the Ku Klux Klan came to the Laundromat and that was one day that I didn’t go. But some of the rest of the people were there when the Ku Klux Klan showed up. My mom was there and I think Ms. Ayers was there. We had groups of people who would go and march you know, picket. They would picket the restaurants, the movie theaters after they passed that bill we decided we would go to the movie theaters and go in couples and try to get in, you know. But they wouldn’t let us in. The Holiday Inn, we also tried the Holiday Inn. This was later on after, this was after I had gone to school then, during that period of time when we were trying to get into the theaters and things like that. See Rosa Parks died, I think that like in 1955, I believe that was…
MR. ALBRECHT: Excuse me, you mean when Rosa Parks…
MRS. PATTERSON: Sat down.
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, go back and start over on that part. I wanted to ask you about what time frame this was that the picketing and so forth was going on. Because Rosa Parks died, that was just recent, not back then.
MRS. PATTERSON: No, when she sat down on the bus, I think that was in ’55, I believe it was. They passed the Accommodation Bill, it was something like that. We couldn’t go into the hotels, restaurants, anything like that. When we would go home to Alabama we would have to go up into the woods. We couldn’t stop at a hotel, or even a gas station. You couldn’t stop at any of those places. My dad would stop along the road and you would have to go out into the woods to use the restroom because you couldn’t, you weren’t allowed to go into any of those places, and Oak Ridge was the same way. Once when I was in Alabama, I was sitting in the back like I always sat. I had gone into town to get my hair fixed. I was a little girl, that was before we moved here. I pulled the chord as we topped the hill, and then I realized, I said, “Oh my goodness, I pulled the chord too soon.” I was too scared to say I made a mistake, would you let me ride on down farther. I just got off the bus and walked all the way home because I was too scared to say anything because how they treated you then was just terrible. You didn’t have any say over anything. So, and I was a little girl then. I had gone to town to get my hair fixed. Anyway, things in Oak Ridge were just like they were everywhere else. We picketed and we marched and something’s opened up and something’s didn’t. It took a long time for Davis Brother’s Cafeteria to open up. We picketed that place for a long time. And the Laundromat, it’s a shame you couldn’t go to a Laundromat, get your clothes washed. You just couldn’t do anything. Children these days don’t realize what we had to through and some of them don’t’ even believe that it happened because they can’t imagine things being the way they were.
MR. ALBRECHT: It is hard to imagine. The fact that kids don’t believe it that worries me a little bit, but let’s change gears here for a second. I want to ask you some other questions about growing up, but they don’t have anything to do with racial issues. How did you feel growing up right next to the plants? Did you ever feel you were in any kind of danger or was there any talk of radioactivity, that kind of thing?
MRS. PATTERSON: Yeah, there was talk about it, but I always said, “If you got something, you’ve already gotten it by now.” And people will say to you, you know, they want to know if you’re glowing or something. “Do you glow in the dark?” People outside of Oak Ridge talk about it I think more so than people in Oak Ridge. Like the Tennessean wrote all these articles about the mercury and stuff. To me, well, now-a-days they have this sick workers program and people are trying to get money because of the, someone in the family has cancer or whatever. I’ve had two husbands that have died, and I don’t know why they died and I’m not trying to get any money or anything. I’m not attending any meetings to try and get any, but my husbands, they both talked about the radioactive stuff that was out there. They would say “hot stuff”. My last husband he talked about it. Stuff out there, he would take me out riding and show me, he’d say that place over there is really “hot”, you know. They really weren’t suppose to be talking about things, you know, and I think like in the beginning they had to sign a paper or something saying they wouldn’t discuss things that went on out there or something like that. I’ve heard my first husband talk about how hot things were out there, you know, and my second husband.
MR. ALBRECHT: Let me ask you this: you were young at the end of the war, when they dropped the bomb on Japan. Did you know that the atomic bomb was what was going on at Oak Ridge where your parents were working and as a result of the atomic bomb being dropped on Japan, how did you feel about that?
MRS. PATTERSON: Well, I was a little girl, but I can remember people talking about the bomb had been dropped and to me, being a little girl was a good thing because the Japanese people were known as the bad guys. So it was kind of like exciting to know that the bomb had been dropped. Now I don’t feel that way, but then I felt it was something that should have been done.
MR. ALBRECHT: Did you know that the bomb was being developed at Oak Ridge? Or did you learn about that after they dropped it, and how did you feel about that?
MRS. PATTERSON: I must have learned that after. I really can’t remember. I don’t remember.
MR. GREENE: Just out of curiosity, were you here at the time?
MRS. PATTERSON: No, that was like when, 1945…
MR. GREENE: August 6.
MRS. PATTERSON: …and we were still in Alabama in ’45. I can remember seemed like the day that it happened, but we were in Alabama.
MR. ALBRECHT: Do you recall what year it was you moved up here?
MRS. PATTERSON: It must have been between ’47 to ’48 we must have come to visit. The year that I started school here was 1949. So we started school in ’49.
MR. ALBRECHT: It was either ’49 or ’50, they opened up and started letting like families…
MRS. PATTERSON: We moved from the flattops to Scarboro.
MR. ALBRECHT: There was a period after the war… I’ve asked about all the questions I’ve wanted to ask. I want to get into what you wanted to do here with what you wanted to read. Was this a part that you had left out before?
MRS. PATTERSON: Yes.
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, so why don’t’ you just read the whole thing.
MRS. PATTERSON: Ok.
MR. ALBRECHT: It would be hard to patch it together because you’re dressed differently.
MRS. PATTERSON: Right, ok. I also have a list here of the last graduating class from Scarboro. And this was the largest class to graduate. I think when we first started, that year; we had three students to graduate. We never did have a football team, so I’m not one to go to football games now because we were not into football. We played basketball, and I loved basketball. That was all we had in sports. We played basketball. At Scarboro, we had what you have May Day where all these other schools would come in, other Black schools and we would have a big fun day, wrapping the May pole and those kind of things. The children that went to Scarboro, there weren’t a whole lot of them. Therefore, the classes were small. This graduating class that had seventeen students and some of those students were night students, like adults that had attended adult class. Like Ms. Helen Hatcher and Sally McCaster, they attended night school and got their education. They were, you know, already grown. So they graduated along with us. Anyway, when I said my speech that was the year I graduated from high school, 1954. In 1955, I suppose because I was probably May or June when I graduated.
MR. ALBRECHT: What I want you to do to set this up as you start to read it, you referred to “my speech”, but you were class valedictorian…
MRS. PATTERSON: Valedictorian.
MR. ALBRECHT: I want you to state that.
MRS. PATTERSON: I was valedictorian, and I…
MR. ALBRECHT: Say it again. Give me time between when I stop talking and when you start so we when we edit there is some time. Ok, go.
MRS. PATTERSON: I was the class valedictorian and I wrote this speech. I can remember giving this speech. I wrote it and I remembered it. I didn’t have to read it. So, I’m ready now to read it. Ok. My momma calls this the Moses speech. And it goes:
“The spiritual ‘Go Down Moses’ has been sung for many years by members of many races. Many know the story associated with this spiritual and many know the conditions that certain people experienced in their efforts to live which gave birth to this spiritual. A familiar line from this spiritual is, ‘Go down Moses, way down in Egypt’s land. Tell ol’ Pharaoh to let my people go.’ Conditions today warrant a new song. This song could be ‘America, let my people in’. You have heard some discussions about integration and how it effects public education in the South. The question remains, ‘How long will a segregated society exist with the breakdown of segregation in our public school system?’ Education is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It is quite difficult to realize that a person will receive his education on an equal basis and then continue to be satisfied with the conditions as they exist in a segregated society. During World War II, our federal government recognized the need for manpower in industry. This serious and growing demand for manpower resulted from the needs of the Army, Navy and Air Force for soldiers, sailors and airmen. Federal Legislation was enacted in the form of a Fair Employment Practice Committee. This committee was designed to aid in industry and selecting industrial workers on the basis of training and qualification, and not race, creed or color. Many industries frown on this commission. So Congressmen finally voted a decreased appropriation resulting in the immediate death of the committee. However, some states have enacted legislation which will provide equal job opportunities for all people irrespective of race, creed, or color.
The end of segregation in education will lead to vast improvements in many phases of American life. Qualifications for political offices will not be based, as so often in the past, on the force in which a candidate propounds its theories on race relations, but rather on his competence for public service and his genuine interest in the common welfare. With equal educational opportunities, the Negro will be prepared for numerous positions requiring special skills which are now denied him. The increased competition for skilled jobs will result not only in a more highly selective personnel, but also in the maintenance against replacing it. Further, increased efficiency and skilled jobs will be insured by knowledge that all jobs will be filled on the basis of merit and not race. It is interesting to see job patterns change in the South. These changes have resulted principally from a change of attitude on the parts of the Southern whites who are concerned with utilizing man power in the South. The Negro worker is gaining in his bid for survival in the labor and professional world. For example, TVA, AEC have begun to employ qualified Negros in the field of chemistry, physics, biology and engineering. Another gain had been noted in the medical profession. The Negros physicians are becoming members of local medical organizations. The net result of this opportunity points to the fact that Negro physicians are placed in a better position to receive the results from research and other practices in their efforts to combat certain diseases and develop certain techniques to combat certain diseases. The South is beginning to realize that manpower skills are lost each year to areas where equal job opportunities are offered. The South if it continues to develop industrially it must offer jobs to all people, based on merit and qualification.
Negros for the most part are desirous of living wholesome and helpful lives. A wholesome helpful climate is made when people irrespective of color are allowed freedom to compete for a job. This freedom to compete for a job increases the mental health of the people which stimulates the people for acceptance of a greater citizenship responsibilities. Many volumes have been written pointing out the differences, delinquencies, the don’t care attitudes on the part of the Negros. These deficiencies resulted from the denial of first class citizenship. Living in an integrated world will tone up and tune up many people who have been depressed as a result of legal segregation. As jobs are open to all people based on qualification and merit, America will produce a healthier and happier children for tomorrow. More and better homes will be built resulting from our integrated way of life. America then becomes a shining example of the world as a country where people irrespective of race are given the opportunity to live wholesome, healthy and happy lives.
The song ‘America the Beautiful’ expresses a thought that is deeply significant at this time and represents a challenge to all Americans and I quote, ‘Oh, Beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain’,”
And I quoted “America the Beautiful”, and that was the end of my speech.
MR. ALBRECHT: That is a remarkable speech for a high school girl to put together. The fact that you delivered that without reading it is amazing.
MRS. PATTERSON: Thank you.
MR. ALBRECHT: I can’t imagine memorizing that long a speech and delivering it with the passion that I’m sure you delivered it with. Anything else?
MR. GREENE: Yeah. I’m going to ask a question, but talk to Chris.
MRS. PATTERSON: Ok.
MR. GREENE: The question is: in your estimation, how much of what you were asking for, have you seen come true?
MRS. PATTERSON: Oh. We have really come along ways and things are a whole lot better than they use to be. Things are not perfect and we still, the struggle still continues. But things are so much better than what they were during the time when I wrote this speech. So many things have happened that I have said in this speech, people are able to live where they want to live. That was one of the things I talked about. The jobs that are being offered, people are working and things are just a whole lot better. I’m not saying things are where they need to be, but so many things have happened for the better. We are better people for what has happened, white and Black.
MR. ALBRECHT: Amen.
MR. GREENE: If there is anything else you would like to say.
MR. ALBRECHT: Yeah if there is anything you want to say that we haven’t touched on.
MRS. PATTERSON: Well, I just think that since I wrote this speech, we have come a long way. Even now, when you hear some people talk about, say the two different parties, the Republican and the Democratic Party. They will say the Black folks will vote for the Democrats and they say they have been brainwashed, but when you realize where we have been and where we have come from, and you can see that it seems and it appears that everything that, say for instance, the Republican party stands for, it appears to me they are not for the parties, say, of Black people, African Americans. People say you got to pull yourself up by your boot straps, but just think about all the years that Black people were killed, kept from reading, and all the talent that was wasted. No telling what Black people could have done if they were allowed to, say for instance, even after the Reconstruction days when we had congressmen, senators and all that and then they started with the Jim Crow Era, and then with the separate but equal and all those things. The Ku Klux Klan killing people, lynching people, and all those things. When you start thinking about those things, they say, “Well, you need to get over it.” I say, I came up during time and I can’t get over it. I can get along with other people and everything. I have really good friends, you know. But if you have a scar on you, that scar is not going to go away. It heals, everything is ok, but it’s still there. When they say, “Get over it. You need to move on and forget it.” Like the Jewish people say, “Never forget”. I can never forget seeing a police man with his Black-jack thing hitting folks. I saw it happen when I was in Auburn, Alabama, when I was little girl. You see all these things, you know, and you don’t forget those things. When they say, “Go on, you should be able to do this. Pull yourself up. Be responsible.” I think that we are responsible. So, it just upset me when they start talking about all these things, “Get over it. Black folks just need to go on and forget it. You weren’t there when it happened.” We weren’t there when it happened, the word I’m trying to say, even though we weren’t there, but you benefitting from what happened, like all the plantations and stuff. People got rich working off of Black folks and it passed on down through each generation. You weren’t there when it happened, but still you benefitted from it. I’m just one person that won’t forget it. I have lots of friends and we can talk about anything. I belong to a group called the Joyful Reconcile and it’s a group of white ladies and Black ladies and we discuss everything. Things like hot subjects, whatever. It’s just a matter of, it burns me up when they say, “You need to get over it. Go on and forget it,” because it truly did happen. Not just so long ago. It hasn’t been years and years and years and years, you know. Things have happened. Even with the Brown against the Board of Education that’s been like about 50 years. I was around at that time. So, things were much better for me than when my mom came along. But then when my daughter came along, things were a whole lot better for her. As we continue on, things are going to get a whole lot better and the struggles will still go on, but we haven’t gotten there yet and I think that most of it has to be within a person’s heart and the longer we live, I think that young people will start to feel better about things than what was felt in the past because they have not had to go through it.
MR. ALBRECHT: Thank you.
MRS. PATTERSON: You’re welcome.
MR. ALBRECHT: Thank you very much.
MR. GREENE: I’d say what we’re doing; preserving these stories is an important thing to do so they won’t forget.
MRS. PATTERSON: Yeah well I think it’s great because things happen and they seem to think we really don’t matter. Even when the Constitution was written and you were like what, three fourths of a person or something like that. It’s just that we were treated almost like animals. Things are better, but we need to keep working.
MR. ALBRECHT: Amen.
MR. GREENE: You need room tone again or just once? I don’t think it has changed that much.
MR. ALBRECHT: No, but let’s go ahead, and get room tone on this tape as well. So let’s be quiet for just a moment.
MR. GREENE: Room Tone.
MRS. PATTERSON: So did we do ok?
MR. ALBRECHT: You did great.
[End of Interview]

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ORAL HISTORY OF DOROTHYE STEELE PATTERSON
Interviewed by Chris Albrecht
Filmed by Rick Greene
Significant Productions
November 3, 2005
Transcribed by Jordan Reed
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, let’s get started with; please tell me your name and where you live, just for the record.
MRS. PATTERSON: My name is Dorothye Strickland Steele Patterson.
MR. ALBRECHT: And you live…
MRS. PATTERSON: I live at 198 South Benedict Avenue in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
MR. ALBRECHT: Thank you very much. As I told you I’m going to ask you a few questions and then we’ll let you finish up what we did the other time. As you know we want to talk about your earliest memories of Oak Ridge, but before that I would like you to tell me a little bit about your family, about your parents. Now we have heard from your mother, but I want to hear your perspective. I want you to tell me about your mother and father, who they were, what they were doing, that kind of thing. Just give us some background please.
MRS. PATTERSON: Well, my mom and dad are from Alabama, Auburn, Alabama and when we were in Alabama we lived in Auburn. Now before that we lived out on a farm in the country, out in Lee County. But we moved to Auburn, while they were there my dad worked in town and my mom did also.
MR. GREENE: Oh, hold up. We’re getting paper rustling sounds.
MRS. PATTERSON: Oh, ok.
MR. ALBRECHT: Do you want me to hold the paper until you’re ready to read it?
MRS. PATTERSON: Ok.
MR. ALBRECHT: I’ll just keep it over here.
MRS. PATTERSON: Ok.
MR. GREENE: Sorry.
MR. ALBRECHT: Do we need to start over?
MR. GREENE: Yeah, we need to start over.
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, I’m sorry about that. If you could start with your name and where you live like you done before.
MRS. PATTERSON: My name is Dorothye Strickland Steele Patterson. I live at 242, not 242, that’s my mom’s address. I live at 198 South Benedict in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And my mom and dad, we lived with my mom and dad in Auburn, Alabama. And we lived in Auburn Alabama. There were four of us girls. My mom didn’t have any boys. I am the oldest and Emma, her name was Emma Gene Harris, she was the baby. She was born in 1942. And she was a baby when my dad came to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They both worked in Auburn and while we were there, my sister Margaret was standing by a fireplace, and during that time, some maybe some strings were hanging down from her dress or something, and she caught on fire. My dad was coming home on lunch. He was riding his bicycle so he saw her when she ran out the door. He jumped off that bicycle and ran and caught her and started rolling her over you know and everything. She was burned pretty bad, but my grandmother who was a woman of all, a jack of all trades so to speak, took care of her for 17 days and 17 nights, she took care of her. She made saves out of the woods and stuff. She never did take her to a doctor. She took care of her until she got well. She still has some of the scars on her thighs, but my grandmother took care of her and we never took her to a doctor. But my dad was coming home from work and he was riding a bicycle, didn’t have a car. So he jumped off that bicycle. It was a good thing he was coming home for lunch that day.
MR. ALBRECHT: What kind of work did your father do in town? And what kind of work did your mother do in town?
MRS. PATTERSON: I think that my dad worked at a creamery. My mom worked at the library there in Auburn. When they came up here, we went to live with our grandparents. There were more than just the four of us girls that were living with our grandparents. We had other cousins who were living with us whose parents were either up here or had gone on to Virginia. We all became a real close-knitted family because of the living quarters with our grandparents who were taking care of us while our parents were here. We stayed down there in Alabama with my grandparents until I decided I didn’t want to stay down there anymore. My grandmother gave me a whipping that I didn’t think that I deserved. I was always a good girl I thought, so she gave me a whipping and I wrote my mom a letter and I told her. I said, “We don’t want to stay here anymore. We want to come up there and stay with you.” So they came and got us because I wrote that letter. We had been to Oak Ridge before to visit and I think that was ’47 or ’48. We had to wait outside the gate because the passes were not ready so someone had to go back in Oak Ridge to get the passes while we had to wait at the gate before we could enter Oak Ridge. You know they had different gates all over Oak Ridge. They had one at the east, north, and south. That’s the way you could come into Oak Ridge. If you didn’t have a pass you couldn’t enter the city. So our passes weren’t there so we had to wait until our passes got there before we could enter into the city. So we visited and we really liked it.
[Break in audio]
MRS. PATTERSON: … had bought me a new bicycle. I was able to ride that bicycle. We went to a place called the Scarboro Community Center. It was not where we live now called the community center. We went to the center everyday just about and really did like this place. Soon we moved out, after we had come to stay for good, we lived in a place called the flattops. These houses were like I think they had two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bath. All four of us girls stayed in one bedroom sleeping two at the head and two at the foot of the bed. That’s the way we slept. But we really enjoyed being here with our parents even though we loved being in Alabama and going to school down there was really fun. We had competition with our other cousins running home every day to show our grandmother our papers and everything. So we had a lot of fun, but still we wasn’t with our parents. We were glad to be in Oak Ridge.
MR. ALBRECHT: What do you remember as a child, when your folks were talking about coming to Oak Ridge and shipping you off to your grandparents? Do you remember any of the conversations that took place at that time?
MRS. PATTERSON: No, I really don’t remember any of those things, except that my daddy said that they could make much more money than what they were making down there and that was one of the reasons they wanted to come up to Oak Ridge. They made a lot of money, you know. They would send money home to take care of us. My mom would make sure that we got money and things that we needed.
MR. ALBRECHT: So, when you were staying with your grandparents, it was you, your sisters…
MRS. PATTERSON: My other cousins.
MR. ALBRECHT: …your other cousins and so forth. You had a good time. You were close-knit, but how did you feel about being away from your parents?
MRS. PATTERSON: We didn’t like that at all. We wanted to be with our parents. Now my baby sister she was just like a little baby at that time because she was born in 1942. I was born in 1936. I am the oldest and so we had to take care of each other. I had to do a lot of taking care of and a lot of growing up. I was doing washing, ironing, cooking, and I was a little girl.
MR. ALBRECHT: You probably told me, but tell me again, how old were you when you first moved to Oak Ridge?
MRS. PATTERSON: I think I was around about 11 or 12. I think I was in 6th grade.
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, how did your life change when you came to Oak Ridge to stay for good?
MRS. PATTERSON: Things changed, you know. We had more of everything, living with our parents. It was just great to be here with our parents. Living with your grandparents, you know, and the rest of the kids, that was ok, but it was much better being here with our parents.
MR. ALBRECHT: I can understand that. You mentioned that when you came here you were in the 6th grade. Tell us about where you went to school and was it integrated, was it segregated. Tell us the status.
MRS. PATTERSON: I went to Scarboro School. It was elementary and high school. We usually say Scarboro High School, but it was elementary and high school. And it was segregated. We had teachers who were paid, and then we had some volunteers. They were white who worked at the plant. And they were doing shift times. They would come to school from time to time to volunteer. My sister when we started, she was like in elementary, we had like two wings and one wing was for the high school and one wing for the elementary. We had great teachers. Teachers who really cared about us and our principal was Mrs. Arizona Officer. And her husband also taught. He was a teacher. They were wonderful people. They cared about us a lot. My baby sister, my mom had a baby in Oak Ridge. I was 16 years old and I really didn’t like it and I stayed mad at my mom I don’t know for how long, I was just so mad she had gotten pregnant and was going to have a baby. I figured I was going to be taking care of that baby being 16 and everything. So going to school, I had to stay out of school to take care of the baby because something happened and the babysitter couldn’t take care of the baby. My momma worked, she always worked. So I had to stay out of school. So, Ms. Officer called and wanted to know why I wasn’t coming to school. So I told her I had to take care of the baby she told me to bring that baby to school. I did. So I started taking her to school and that’s when Scarboro Daycare Center started. I would take Virginia to school every day until my momma was able to get someone to take care of her. The teachers were caring people. That’s what I miss, well I didn’t go to Oak Ridge High School, but that’s what I miss is their loving and caring that seemed like it was missing when we started school at Oak Ridge High School. My sister started Oak Ridge High School the 1955-1956 year. I graduated Scarboro High School 1954-55 and during that period of time the transition started. I would go over to Oak Ridge High School and some of the white kids would come over to Scarboro School to help us get acquainted. It started before the Supreme Court handed down the decision because we were already in the process of doing the transition for the next year. And the Supreme Court handed down their decision May 17, 1954, and I was really excited about it because that meant that schools were going to be integrated. Going to Scarboro we had more say than when I was going to Alabama, but it still wasn’t like going to Oak Ridge High School where there were advantages that we wouldn’t have because for instance, the volunteer teachers. We didn’t have enough paid teachers, so we had volunteers. Things were just not, they say you’re suppose to be separate but equal, that wasn’t true for us and education in most Black schools you can always pass by a white school while you were on the way to a segregated Black school. So things changed once the schools were integrated and I was a part of that transition from Scarboro to Oak Ridge High School.
MR. ALBRECHT: Tell me a little bit more about the teachers and the volunteer teachers. Were they Black, were they white?
MRS. PATTERSON: They were white. The volunteer teachers were white; they had jobs at the plants. And I guess some of them were scientists or things like that and they would come and teach class. I can remember that we had some that came in and taught biology. We had a teacher that taught biology, but that wasn’t her subject. She was like a Home Ec. teacher or something like that. Anyway, the teachers who were there really cared about you and helped you with your homework. I usually had my homework done before I came home every day because we had study hall and the teachers would help us. So usually I didn’t have homework when I got home which was good because usually I had to finish my chores like if I hadn’t finished cleaning up I had to do that when I got home. I helped cooked dinner ‘cause my mom worked. So I usually had my homework done at school because the teachers made sure we got our lessons. That’s one of the things that was missing once we had integrated schools. You had teachers that really cared about you. Then you missed all that community and the getting together, the PTA meetings and things like that, you missed all that, the feeling of being together.
MR. ALBRECHT: You mentioned the volunteer teachers were white, were the paid teachers white also?
MRS. PATTERSON: No, no, they were Black teachers.
MR. ALBRECHT: Tell me about, you mentioned living in the flattops, two bedrooms and so forth, was there a big difference between where white families and where Black families lived?
MRS. PATTERSON: I really don’t know. When we moved from the flattops we moved to where I’m living now. I was a little girl at that time. So I don’t know exactly where white people were living. I didn’t really come in contact with that many white people unless they were the volunteer teachers that came over. I don’t know about exactly where they were living. They were living in Oak Ridge, and we use to get on the buses on Sundays and ride around to the different places in Oak Ridge and they lived on streets like Pennsylvania, New York, and all these different kinds of states. At one point I thought I was going to New York City or something. We lived in Scarboro where all the streets are named after Black universities and we would get on the buses on Sunday, you know you could ride on a bus for 10 cents. And get a token and you could get off that bus and get on another bus and just ride around all over Oak Ridge just about. We used to think we were going from city to city, Pennsylvania, New York and all these places named after the states a lot of those streets were. I never had that much contact with the white kids.
MR. ALBRECHT: Let me ask you a question: you talk about riding the bus and it makes me think about the recent passing of Rosa Parks. Did you have, tell me about the segregation that was here. Did you have to ride in the back of the bus? Tell me about some of the examples when you were a school girl.
MRS. PATTERSON: In Oak Ridge, things were segregated. It was just like any other place. You would think that being here and everything that being run by the federal government things would be different. But if, say, we wanted to get a sandwich or something, we had to go around to the back and get it or something. We couldn’t just go in, sit down, and eat. We couldn’t go to the movies. You couldn’t do things just like everywhere else. You couldn’t go into the McCrory’s 5 and 10 cent store. We had one of them. You couldn’t go in there and sit down or order anything and eat it. You could get things, but you couldn’t sit. Restaurants and things, cafeterias, you could not eat. We had a skating rink, we were allowed to skate on Sunday nights. But we wanted to skate anytime that we wanted to skate you know. So we started to picket this place and different places. This man closed the skating rink down. He said that he would never let Black folks skate. So he closed it down. And Davis Brother’s Cafeteria, we had to picket it. We picketed the Laundromat and the Ku Klux Klan came to the Laundromat and that was one day that I didn’t go. But some of the rest of the people were there when the Ku Klux Klan showed up. My mom was there and I think Ms. Ayers was there. We had groups of people who would go and march you know, picket. They would picket the restaurants, the movie theaters after they passed that bill we decided we would go to the movie theaters and go in couples and try to get in, you know. But they wouldn’t let us in. The Holiday Inn, we also tried the Holiday Inn. This was later on after, this was after I had gone to school then, during that period of time when we were trying to get into the theaters and things like that. See Rosa Parks died, I think that like in 1955, I believe that was…
MR. ALBRECHT: Excuse me, you mean when Rosa Parks…
MRS. PATTERSON: Sat down.
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, go back and start over on that part. I wanted to ask you about what time frame this was that the picketing and so forth was going on. Because Rosa Parks died, that was just recent, not back then.
MRS. PATTERSON: No, when she sat down on the bus, I think that was in ’55, I believe it was. They passed the Accommodation Bill, it was something like that. We couldn’t go into the hotels, restaurants, anything like that. When we would go home to Alabama we would have to go up into the woods. We couldn’t stop at a hotel, or even a gas station. You couldn’t stop at any of those places. My dad would stop along the road and you would have to go out into the woods to use the restroom because you couldn’t, you weren’t allowed to go into any of those places, and Oak Ridge was the same way. Once when I was in Alabama, I was sitting in the back like I always sat. I had gone into town to get my hair fixed. I was a little girl, that was before we moved here. I pulled the chord as we topped the hill, and then I realized, I said, “Oh my goodness, I pulled the chord too soon.” I was too scared to say I made a mistake, would you let me ride on down farther. I just got off the bus and walked all the way home because I was too scared to say anything because how they treated you then was just terrible. You didn’t have any say over anything. So, and I was a little girl then. I had gone to town to get my hair fixed. Anyway, things in Oak Ridge were just like they were everywhere else. We picketed and we marched and something’s opened up and something’s didn’t. It took a long time for Davis Brother’s Cafeteria to open up. We picketed that place for a long time. And the Laundromat, it’s a shame you couldn’t go to a Laundromat, get your clothes washed. You just couldn’t do anything. Children these days don’t realize what we had to through and some of them don’t’ even believe that it happened because they can’t imagine things being the way they were.
MR. ALBRECHT: It is hard to imagine. The fact that kids don’t believe it that worries me a little bit, but let’s change gears here for a second. I want to ask you some other questions about growing up, but they don’t have anything to do with racial issues. How did you feel growing up right next to the plants? Did you ever feel you were in any kind of danger or was there any talk of radioactivity, that kind of thing?
MRS. PATTERSON: Yeah, there was talk about it, but I always said, “If you got something, you’ve already gotten it by now.” And people will say to you, you know, they want to know if you’re glowing or something. “Do you glow in the dark?” People outside of Oak Ridge talk about it I think more so than people in Oak Ridge. Like the Tennessean wrote all these articles about the mercury and stuff. To me, well, now-a-days they have this sick workers program and people are trying to get money because of the, someone in the family has cancer or whatever. I’ve had two husbands that have died, and I don’t know why they died and I’m not trying to get any money or anything. I’m not attending any meetings to try and get any, but my husbands, they both talked about the radioactive stuff that was out there. They would say “hot stuff”. My last husband he talked about it. Stuff out there, he would take me out riding and show me, he’d say that place over there is really “hot”, you know. They really weren’t suppose to be talking about things, you know, and I think like in the beginning they had to sign a paper or something saying they wouldn’t discuss things that went on out there or something like that. I’ve heard my first husband talk about how hot things were out there, you know, and my second husband.
MR. ALBRECHT: Let me ask you this: you were young at the end of the war, when they dropped the bomb on Japan. Did you know that the atomic bomb was what was going on at Oak Ridge where your parents were working and as a result of the atomic bomb being dropped on Japan, how did you feel about that?
MRS. PATTERSON: Well, I was a little girl, but I can remember people talking about the bomb had been dropped and to me, being a little girl was a good thing because the Japanese people were known as the bad guys. So it was kind of like exciting to know that the bomb had been dropped. Now I don’t feel that way, but then I felt it was something that should have been done.
MR. ALBRECHT: Did you know that the bomb was being developed at Oak Ridge? Or did you learn about that after they dropped it, and how did you feel about that?
MRS. PATTERSON: I must have learned that after. I really can’t remember. I don’t remember.
MR. GREENE: Just out of curiosity, were you here at the time?
MRS. PATTERSON: No, that was like when, 1945…
MR. GREENE: August 6.
MRS. PATTERSON: …and we were still in Alabama in ’45. I can remember seemed like the day that it happened, but we were in Alabama.
MR. ALBRECHT: Do you recall what year it was you moved up here?
MRS. PATTERSON: It must have been between ’47 to ’48 we must have come to visit. The year that I started school here was 1949. So we started school in ’49.
MR. ALBRECHT: It was either ’49 or ’50, they opened up and started letting like families…
MRS. PATTERSON: We moved from the flattops to Scarboro.
MR. ALBRECHT: There was a period after the war… I’ve asked about all the questions I’ve wanted to ask. I want to get into what you wanted to do here with what you wanted to read. Was this a part that you had left out before?
MRS. PATTERSON: Yes.
MR. ALBRECHT: Ok, so why don’t’ you just read the whole thing.
MRS. PATTERSON: Ok.
MR. ALBRECHT: It would be hard to patch it together because you’re dressed differently.
MRS. PATTERSON: Right, ok. I also have a list here of the last graduating class from Scarboro. And this was the largest class to graduate. I think when we first started, that year; we had three students to graduate. We never did have a football team, so I’m not one to go to football games now because we were not into football. We played basketball, and I loved basketball. That was all we had in sports. We played basketball. At Scarboro, we had what you have May Day where all these other schools would come in, other Black schools and we would have a big fun day, wrapping the May pole and those kind of things. The children that went to Scarboro, there weren’t a whole lot of them. Therefore, the classes were small. This graduating class that had seventeen students and some of those students were night students, like adults that had attended adult class. Like Ms. Helen Hatcher and Sally McCaster, they attended night school and got their education. They were, you know, already grown. So they graduated along with us. Anyway, when I said my speech that was the year I graduated from high school, 1954. In 1955, I suppose because I was probably May or June when I graduated.
MR. ALBRECHT: What I want you to do to set this up as you start to read it, you referred to “my speech”, but you were class valedictorian…
MRS. PATTERSON: Valedictorian.
MR. ALBRECHT: I want you to state that.
MRS. PATTERSON: I was valedictorian, and I…
MR. ALBRECHT: Say it again. Give me time between when I stop talking and when you start so we when we edit there is some time. Ok, go.
MRS. PATTERSON: I was the class valedictorian and I wrote this speech. I can remember giving this speech. I wrote it and I remembered it. I didn’t have to read it. So, I’m ready now to read it. Ok. My momma calls this the Moses speech. And it goes:
“The spiritual ‘Go Down Moses’ has been sung for many years by members of many races. Many know the story associated with this spiritual and many know the conditions that certain people experienced in their efforts to live which gave birth to this spiritual. A familiar line from this spiritual is, ‘Go down Moses, way down in Egypt’s land. Tell ol’ Pharaoh to let my people go.’ Conditions today warrant a new song. This song could be ‘America, let my people in’. You have heard some discussions about integration and how it effects public education in the South. The question remains, ‘How long will a segregated society exist with the breakdown of segregation in our public school system?’ Education is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It is quite difficult to realize that a person will receive his education on an equal basis and then continue to be satisfied with the conditions as they exist in a segregated society. During World War II, our federal government recognized the need for manpower in industry. This serious and growing demand for manpower resulted from the needs of the Army, Navy and Air Force for soldiers, sailors and airmen. Federal Legislation was enacted in the form of a Fair Employment Practice Committee. This committee was designed to aid in industry and selecting industrial workers on the basis of training and qualification, and not race, creed or color. Many industries frown on this commission. So Congressmen finally voted a decreased appropriation resulting in the immediate death of the committee. However, some states have enacted legislation which will provide equal job opportunities for all people irrespective of race, creed, or color.
The end of segregation in education will lead to vast improvements in many phases of American life. Qualifications for political offices will not be based, as so often in the past, on the force in which a candidate propounds its theories on race relations, but rather on his competence for public service and his genuine interest in the common welfare. With equal educational opportunities, the Negro will be prepared for numerous positions requiring special skills which are now denied him. The increased competition for skilled jobs will result not only in a more highly selective personnel, but also in the maintenance against replacing it. Further, increased efficiency and skilled jobs will be insured by knowledge that all jobs will be filled on the basis of merit and not race. It is interesting to see job patterns change in the South. These changes have resulted principally from a change of attitude on the parts of the Southern whites who are concerned with utilizing man power in the South. The Negro worker is gaining in his bid for survival in the labor and professional world. For example, TVA, AEC have begun to employ qualified Negros in the field of chemistry, physics, biology and engineering. Another gain had been noted in the medical profession. The Negros physicians are becoming members of local medical organizations. The net result of this opportunity points to the fact that Negro physicians are placed in a better position to receive the results from research and other practices in their efforts to combat certain diseases and develop certain techniques to combat certain diseases. The South is beginning to realize that manpower skills are lost each year to areas where equal job opportunities are offered. The South if it continues to develop industrially it must offer jobs to all people, based on merit and qualification.
Negros for the most part are desirous of living wholesome and helpful lives. A wholesome helpful climate is made when people irrespective of color are allowed freedom to compete for a job. This freedom to compete for a job increases the mental health of the people which stimulates the people for acceptance of a greater citizenship responsibilities. Many volumes have been written pointing out the differences, delinquencies, the don’t care attitudes on the part of the Negros. These deficiencies resulted from the denial of first class citizenship. Living in an integrated world will tone up and tune up many people who have been depressed as a result of legal segregation. As jobs are open to all people based on qualification and merit, America will produce a healthier and happier children for tomorrow. More and better homes will be built resulting from our integrated way of life. America then becomes a shining example of the world as a country where people irrespective of race are given the opportunity to live wholesome, healthy and happy lives.
The song ‘America the Beautiful’ expresses a thought that is deeply significant at this time and represents a challenge to all Americans and I quote, ‘Oh, Beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain’,”
And I quoted “America the Beautiful”, and that was the end of my speech.
MR. ALBRECHT: That is a remarkable speech for a high school girl to put together. The fact that you delivered that without reading it is amazing.
MRS. PATTERSON: Thank you.
MR. ALBRECHT: I can’t imagine memorizing that long a speech and delivering it with the passion that I’m sure you delivered it with. Anything else?
MR. GREENE: Yeah. I’m going to ask a question, but talk to Chris.
MRS. PATTERSON: Ok.
MR. GREENE: The question is: in your estimation, how much of what you were asking for, have you seen come true?
MRS. PATTERSON: Oh. We have really come along ways and things are a whole lot better than they use to be. Things are not perfect and we still, the struggle still continues. But things are so much better than what they were during the time when I wrote this speech. So many things have happened that I have said in this speech, people are able to live where they want to live. That was one of the things I talked about. The jobs that are being offered, people are working and things are just a whole lot better. I’m not saying things are where they need to be, but so many things have happened for the better. We are better people for what has happened, white and Black.
MR. ALBRECHT: Amen.
MR. GREENE: If there is anything else you would like to say.
MR. ALBRECHT: Yeah if there is anything you want to say that we haven’t touched on.
MRS. PATTERSON: Well, I just think that since I wrote this speech, we have come a long way. Even now, when you hear some people talk about, say the two different parties, the Republican and the Democratic Party. They will say the Black folks will vote for the Democrats and they say they have been brainwashed, but when you realize where we have been and where we have come from, and you can see that it seems and it appears that everything that, say for instance, the Republican party stands for, it appears to me they are not for the parties, say, of Black people, African Americans. People say you got to pull yourself up by your boot straps, but just think about all the years that Black people were killed, kept from reading, and all the talent that was wasted. No telling what Black people could have done if they were allowed to, say for instance, even after the Reconstruction days when we had congressmen, senators and all that and then they started with the Jim Crow Era, and then with the separate but equal and all those things. The Ku Klux Klan killing people, lynching people, and all those things. When you start thinking about those things, they say, “Well, you need to get over it.” I say, I came up during time and I can’t get over it. I can get along with other people and everything. I have really good friends, you know. But if you have a scar on you, that scar is not going to go away. It heals, everything is ok, but it’s still there. When they say, “Get over it. You need to move on and forget it.” Like the Jewish people say, “Never forget”. I can never forget seeing a police man with his Black-jack thing hitting folks. I saw it happen when I was in Auburn, Alabama, when I was little girl. You see all these things, you know, and you don’t forget those things. When they say, “Go on, you should be able to do this. Pull yourself up. Be responsible.” I think that we are responsible. So, it just upset me when they start talking about all these things, “Get over it. Black folks just need to go on and forget it. You weren’t there when it happened.” We weren’t there when it happened, the word I’m trying to say, even though we weren’t there, but you benefitting from what happened, like all the plantations and stuff. People got rich working off of Black folks and it passed on down through each generation. You weren’t there when it happened, but still you benefitted from it. I’m just one person that won’t forget it. I have lots of friends and we can talk about anything. I belong to a group called the Joyful Reconcile and it’s a group of white ladies and Black ladies and we discuss everything. Things like hot subjects, whatever. It’s just a matter of, it burns me up when they say, “You need to get over it. Go on and forget it,” because it truly did happen. Not just so long ago. It hasn’t been years and years and years and years, you know. Things have happened. Even with the Brown against the Board of Education that’s been like about 50 years. I was around at that time. So, things were much better for me than when my mom came along. But then when my daughter came along, things were a whole lot better for her. As we continue on, things are going to get a whole lot better and the struggles will still go on, but we haven’t gotten there yet and I think that most of it has to be within a person’s heart and the longer we live, I think that young people will start to feel better about things than what was felt in the past because they have not had to go through it.
MR. ALBRECHT: Thank you.
MRS. PATTERSON: You’re welcome.
MR. ALBRECHT: Thank you very much.
MR. GREENE: I’d say what we’re doing; preserving these stories is an important thing to do so they won’t forget.
MRS. PATTERSON: Yeah well I think it’s great because things happen and they seem to think we really don’t matter. Even when the Constitution was written and you were like what, three fourths of a person or something like that. It’s just that we were treated almost like animals. Things are better, but we need to keep working.
MR. ALBRECHT: Amen.
MR. GREENE: You need room tone again or just once? I don’t think it has changed that much.
MR. ALBRECHT: No, but let’s go ahead, and get room tone on this tape as well. So let’s be quiet for just a moment.
MR. GREENE: Room Tone.
MRS. PATTERSON: So did we do ok?
MR. ALBRECHT: You did great.
[End of Interview]